The Seven Cs of Team Building: Chemistry

11/03/2026 | JD3 Lead | Leadership, The Seven Cs of Team Building

The Right People. The Right Mix. Extraordinary Results.

The best team isn’t necessarily made up of the best individuals. It’s made up of the right individuals.

You can assemble a group of exceptionally talented people, each with impressive credentials, valuable experience, and outstanding individual performance, and still end up with a mediocre team.

Why? Because talent alone doesn’t create teamwork.

Chemistry does.

Chemistry is the third of my Seven Cs of Team Building, following Competence and Character. While those first two Cs focus primarily on the individual, Chemistry focuses on how individuals fit together.

It’s about creating a team where each person’s strengths complement those of others, weaknesses are offset, and collective performance exceeds what the individuals could accomplish independently.

The whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.

Catalysts and Inhibitors

I like to think about team Chemistry the same way we think about chemistry in science.

In a chemical reaction, a catalyst accelerates the reaction. An inhibitor slows it down.

The same thing happens on teams.

Some people are catalysts. Their presence makes everyone around them better. They bring energy, build trust, encourage collaboration, challenge conventional thinking, and help others perform at a higher level.

Others are inhibitors. They may be extraordinarily talented individually, but their attitudes, egos, or behaviors slow everyone else down. They create friction, discourage collaboration, undermine trust, and consume energy that could otherwise be directed toward achieving the team’s goals.

Here’s what makes this particularly important: A catalyst doesn’t necessarily have to be your most talented performer, and an inhibitor might be your most talented performer.

That’s why Chemistry deserves as much attention as Competence and Character when building a team.

Chemistry Isn’t Compatibility

One of the biggest mistakes leaders make is confusing Chemistry with compatibility.

We naturally gravitate toward people who think like us, communicate like us, and see the world the way we do. Hiring those people might make the workplace more comfortable, but it won’t necessarily make the team better.

In fact, too much similarity can create blind spots, discourage constructive disagreement, and limit innovation.

This brings me to another misconception about building teams.

I don’t believe corporate teams are families.

I know that’s contrary to what many leaders say. We frequently hear executives describe their employees as family, presumably to promote loyalty, camaraderie, and a sense of belonging.

But families and teams operate under very different principles.

You don’t get cut from your family because someone more talented comes along. You don’t get traded because your particular strengths might be more valuable somewhere else. And you don’t get promoted to being someone’s older brother because you’ve demonstrated exceptional performance.

Professional sports teams, however, operate exactly that way.

Reed Hastings, co-founder of Netflix, famously challenged the family analogy when describing the company’s culture:

“We model ourselves on a professional sports team, not a family.”

I agree.

On a championship sports team, players may genuinely care about one another, form deep friendships, and develop tremendous loyalty. But they also understand that positions must be earned, performance matters, and the composition of the team will change as its needs evolve.

A great coach doesn’t simply assemble players who like one another. The coach assembles players whose abilities complement one another and who can execute together to win championships.

That’s Chemistry.

And unlike the family analogy, this philosophy counteracts complacency. It establishes the expectation that every teammate must continue contributing, developing, and making the team better.

Caring about people and holding them accountable are not mutually exclusive. In fact, great leaders do both.

Sometimes Leaders See What Others Don’t

Several years ago, I faced a hiring decision involving a young woman.

My team had evaluated several candidates and developed a clear preference. She was not it. But I saw something different.

I believed she possessed qualities our existing team needed. Not necessarily more talent than the other candidates, but a particular combination of strengths, personality, and perspective that could make the entire team better.

Against the advice of most of my team, I took a chance and hired her.

It worked.

She became an outstanding contributor and leader. More importantly, she brought something to the team that had been missing.

I wasn’t simply evaluating how she compared with the other candidates. I was evaluating how she would complement the people we already had.

Leaders who have a clear vision for their teams sometimes have to make those calls. That doesn’t mean ignoring the advice of others. It means listening carefully, understanding their concerns, and then exercising the judgment that comes with leadership.

Building great teams isn’t always about choosing the obvious candidate. Sometimes it’s about recognizing the missing ingredient.

The Leader’s Responsibility

As leaders, we have to look beyond individual résumés, performance statistics, and personalities.

We need to understand the team we already have before deciding who should join it.

Where are our strengths? Where are our weaknesses? What perspectives are missing? Who will challenge our assumptions? Who will bring people together? Who will help others become better?

And we must continually evaluate whether the team’s Chemistry is improving or deteriorating.

The person who was a catalyst yesterday might become an inhibitor tomorrow. The teammate whose skills were perfectly suited to the team’s needs three years ago might be better suited to a different role today.

Just as a championship coach must continually evaluate the roster, leaders must be willing to make difficult decisions to keep their teams performing at the highest level.

That doesn’t mean treating people as disposable. Quite the opposite. It means investing in their development, helping them find roles where they can succeed, and being honest when something isn’t working.

Because every person we add, promote, develop, or tolerate changes the Chemistry.

The JD3 Takeaway

Competence tells us what someone is capable of doing.

Character tells us how they will choose to do it.

Chemistry tells us what happens to the rest of the team when they do.

Great leaders don’t just collect talent. They intentionally assemble people whose individual strengths combine to create extraordinary collective performance.

The next time you’re making a hiring decision, evaluating a teammate, or considering a promotion, ask yourself one question:

Will this person make the people around them better?